- Banning Islamic Movement of Nigeria can only drive its members underground
Apparently acting on the report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the violent clash in Zaria between members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) and soldiers of the Nigerian Army from December12 to 14, 2015, that claimed hundreds of lives, the Kaduna State government has banned the IMN from functioning in the state. The state government’s order, which took effect from October 7, 2016, explicitly stated that “the society that bears the name, style, guise or nomenclature of the ‘Islamic Movement of Nigeria’, is hereby declared an unlawful society in Kaduna State”.
Given the rationale for this action, which the state government claimed was the need to maintain public order, promote public safety and morality as well as safeguard the rights and freedoms of citizens, we would have expected the ban on the IMN to have had a positive impact on peace and security in the state. Not only has this not been the case, we have been witnessing increasing violent clashes between members of the group in parts of Kaduna and other states across the North.
For instance, the attempt by members of the IMN to celebrate the group’s annual Ashura Day, which includes public processions and rallies, was violently resisted by opposing Muslim youth groups in different parts of the North. In Kaduna State, at least two members of the IMN were killed in a violent clash with angry youths in the Tudun-Wada area of Kaduna South. And in Katsina State, no less than 10 members of the group lost their lives in a bloody confrontation with other Islamic groups in Funtua while many houses and vehicles were vandalised.
A combined team of soldiers and riot policemen was said to have descended on the house of the group’s leader in Jos, Plateau State, Alhaji Adamu Tsoho, while also demolishing its Husniyya (worship centre) in the city. This was in addition to the 44 members of the movement who were remanded in the Jos prison when a procession they were staging turned violent. And in Tamaje area of Sokoto South Local Government Area of the state, one member of the group was reportedly killed in a violent clash.
What is, therefore, gradually and dangerously evolving in many parts of the North is a pattern of violent confrontation between the Shi’ite Islamic sect, of which the IMN is a foremost affiliate, and other Islamic sects in the region. The purported ban on the IMN by the Kaduna State government not only violates the members’ constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion and worship, it can only drive the group underground, engender among its members a siege and persecution mentality and push them in the direction of extremism.
The attempt by the Kaduna State government to justify the ban on the grounds that it is not formally registered as a corporate entity is indefensible. The constitution does not require that a group must be registered before it can practice its chosen faith. In any case, this is a group made of at least three million members spread across the 36 states of the federation. It is effectively registered in the hearts and minds of its members.
Those members of the IMN or any religious group for that matter that violate the laws of the land should be treated as the criminals that they are in accordance with due process rather than an entire group being tagged as guilty by association. It is important that no religious groups in the country are driven, by commission or omission, into the embrace of foreign terror networks in desperate search of new converts to their vocation of violence. We should always bear in mind the avoidable factors that led to the transformation of Boko Haram into the monster it has become over the last decade. Surely, we can avoid repeating past mistakes.
